My mother was from the green tribe of grace
She spoke the language of the heavenly ones
She wore a silky scarf of faith
Her heart resembled god’s throne-
And was as large as the Divine truth..
I could hear God’s voice from her heartbeats
And no one knew that god was in our house
And that the sun would rise along with
The voice of my mother.
My mother was from the green tribe of grace
Whenever she approached me
I could see rays of light
In her little footprints
I could see the green, heavenly fields
And I would pick from their trees the fruits of mirth.
My mother was from the green tribe of grace
She wore a silky scarf of faith
Her forehead was the first stanza of God’s loveliest psalm
-which I recited every morning with affection-
And from which I discovered what God’s poetry meant.
My mother was from the green tribe of grace
She spoke the language of the heavenly ones
Endurance-that little white dove
Washing her wings every dawn
In the purest fountains of paradise-
Would bring her messages form the auspicious land of the Koran.
My mother was from the green tribe of grace
Her lineage extended along the sun’s memory
I heard form the sun that
When she was born
Her father mourned the collapse of the tall tree of his life.
I heard from the sun that-
With a finger of faith-
My mother would seek the word SMILE in the book of her life
But, alas, she could not find it even at her last breath of life.
My mother knew crying
She would derive a thousand words from TO CRY.
In her eyes, she had memorized crying in a thousand languages.
Her eyes-two perfect mirrors of theophany-
Possessed excellent memory.
My mother was a stranger to spring
Her life was an ant trail through the mountain of misery
Where, all four seasons,
The clouds of insult would pour the rain of abuse
And she would gather countless flowers of affliction.
My mother was a patient stone
Whenever my father rode the ship of his agitation
In the scarlet stream of fury
She would take refuge in the shores of endurance.
She would wipe her tears and
Enter into communion with God.
My father was strange
Whenever he put on his turban of pride,
He would think that the sun was a mere pigeon
Which flew from his shoulders.
He would think that he could ration sunlight for my mother
And that the moon was a colorful marble he could hang on his horse’s mane.
My father was strange
Whenever he summoned me
I could smell disaster all around me
And words-like scared sparrows-
Would fly away from the autumn-ridden field of my mind
And fear would hide my face.
Whenever my father summoned me,
The blood of speech would be arrested in the red veins of my tongue
And my mother’s heart-
Like a glowing crystal-
Would let itself go in the depth of darkness.
My mother would see her loss
In the broken mirror of fear
And await a catastrophe.
My father was strange
Whenever he put on his turban of pride
His little empire would begin in the four corners of our little house.
Then,
He would lash freedom
-which was I-
And life
-which was Mother-
And chain us.
My mother’s blessed soul would even then repeat:
“May God never take his shadow off our heads.”
Kabul
October, 1991
.JPG)
